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By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Reuters

Sinead and John Kerr at the European Figure Skating Championships in January in Tallinn, Estonia. Ice dancing often requires partners to convey believable sizzle on ice.

Vancouver, British Columbia — When Alexandra Zaretsky takes to the ice in Olympic ice-dancing competition Friday, she’ll look deep into her partner’s eyes as they skate the “Tango Romantica.”

But not too deep. That’s because her partner is her brother, 26-year-old Roman Zaretsky. “We try to find ways to kind of look through—or look a little up, or a little sideways,” says Ms. Zaretsky. “Hey, you gotta act.”

 

Olympics: Sibling Skaters ‘Sizzle’

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Some ice skating pairs will have to feign attraction more so than others — at least, for those that are related. WSJ’s Geoffrey Fowler talks with Kelsey Hubbard about four pairs of sibling ice skaters that have to “sizzle” on the ice.

They’re not the only ice dancers in this particular pickle. Four of the 23 ice-dancing pairs competing at the Vancouver Games are brother and sister. And this year, they’re all required to complete a compulsory portion of competition by doing the forbidden dance.

How do you tango with your sibling? “We get that question a lot,” says Israeli Ms. Zaretsky—as do all of the siblings competing here.

AFP/Getty Images

Cathy Reed and Chris Reed from Japan perform during the Ice Dance Compulsory Dance event of the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships.

Ice dancing, arguably the most artistic of any Olympic sport, requires a certain believable sizzle on the ice in order to capture a medal. “The training is a sport, but the performance is an art,” says Sinead Kerr, 31, of Great Britain, who is dancing with her brother John.

Ice dancing, which was added to the Games in 1976, blends elements of figure skating and ballroom dancing. Partners stick close together throughout the routine, doing spins as a team while holding hands. Ice dancers have to perform three times: a compulsory dance in which all the teams do the same moves and use the same music (this time, it’s the “Tango Romantica”), a two-minute original dance to a set theme (this year it’s folk/country), and a four-minute free dance of the team’s choosing.

Ice dancers learn to become actors of sorts. “Our coach told us envision someone else’s head is there,” says Chris Reed, 20, who dances with his sister Cathy for Japan. “It’s all an act.”

Mr. Reed watches videos of his own performance, and uses mirrors to practices his moves and even his facial expressions. His tango look is “serious but endearing,” says Ms. Reed, who is 22.

Mr. Kerr, 29, says that dancing with his sister means he is prevented from developing romantic themes in performance. (Their tango will be more like a fight between two people, he says.)

“On the ice, we don’t think of each other as brother and sister,” he adds.

Ruling out romance also forces them to be more creative, and act out different sorts of roles on the ice, he says. In 2008, they performed a routine dressed as space aliens. In the Vancouver Games, they are dancing one segment to Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” with Ms. Kerr dressed as a truck driver and Mr. Kerr as a hitchhiker. They will be telling the story of a driver who picks up a rider and then the two swap stories about their many adventures.

Even nonsiblings can have a hard time learning to express sizzle all while spinning and lifting their partner off the ground at dizzying speeds.

“Sometimes you need to emote those kinds of feelings like you are in love with her,” says American skater Evan Bates, who has been ice dancing with his partner Emily Samuelson—to whom he is not related—for 10 years. Yet “it is so hard to develop that when you are 10 and 11 years old, and you are grossed out by girls,” says Mr. Bates.

All ice-dancing relationships are strange, say athletes, because they involve spending countless intense hours with the same person, while trying to maintain a professional partnership. Sharing a family bond can smooth over disagreements about music, practice or career path. It has been proved to work before: During the 1992 Games, the French brother and sister team Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay won silver.

Sibling ice dancing is more common than one might think. Noriko Reed, the mother of Chris and Cathy, says it wasn’t her idea to pair her son and daughter. “It was just the luck of the ice dance coach that put them together,” she said. A third Reed sibling, Allison, is also competing in ice dancing in Vancouver, for the Georgian team with Otar Japaridze.

Siblings can certainly fight. “Other couples also fight, but the way they do it is different,” says German skater Christina Beier, 25, who competes with her brother William, 27. “We know exactly what you have to say if you want to hurt the other one.”

After an injury, last season they even gave a try to dancing with new partners. “With others, it was harder,” says Ms. Beier. “It is from nature that we move together. When we got back together, it was like we never split up.”

For one dance in Vancouver, they will represent their own brother and sister relationship—starting with skating together as kids, then stretching to their breakup and reunion. “This is our story, so it is easier to tell,” says Ms. Beier.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

By ANDY ISAACSON

If careening downriver at 50 miles per hour in a boat that came within inches of jagged cliff walls hadn’t woken me up and floating backwards through a swirling rapid named Toilet hadn’t elicited a big enough dose of epinephrine, there was always the possibility that plunging to the depths of a canyon with my arms outstretched would empty my adrenaline reserves.

It was a relatively typical day of sightseeing in Queenstown, New Zealand. The country has built a brand around thrill-seeking and Queenstown, which started as a gold-mining camp on the shores of South Island’s Lake Wakatipu, is the unofficial capital of the adventure industry. It is a natural theme park for grownups that offers an improbable selection of rides and attractions aimed at conquering personal fears and delivering major doses of excitement.

The town’s three-block main drag, Shotover Street, reminded me of the raucous bazaars I’ve walked through in Asia where hawkers beckon constantly, only here it’s the signage that tugs at you: Canyon Swing! Heli-bike! Skydive! There is bungee jumping—a Kiwi innovation—snow skiing, hang gliding, river boarding, river surfing, cave tubing, horseback riding, fly-fishing or a Jeep ride through Middle-earth with the “Lord of the Rings” location tour. There are activities most of us have never heard of, too, including shweeb (monorail biking) and Zorbing (rolling downhill in a giant ball). Not your speed? Take a hike. Here it’s called a tramp.

Queenstown, New Zealand is known as an adventure sports mecca. Reporter Andy Isaacson set out to cram as many thrills as he could into one day, including jet boating, white water rafting, and the massive Nevis Bungee Jump.

What makes all this—and the decent food and wine scene—possible is the town’s picturesque location, near the Remarkable mountains and surrounded by accessible wilderness.

The adrenaline fare comes mostly a la carte, but at Queenstown Rafting on Shotover Street, I noticed a three-course tasting menu for about $500: jet boating down the Shotover River—an amuse-bouche—followed by a starter of whitewater rafting and, for the main course, a 440-foot jump above a canyon, tethered to a rubber band. I booked it straight away.

My day began at 7:30 a.m. on the jet boat, a highly maneuverable vessel propelled by a high-powered squirt of water, like a Jet Ski. It was invented in the 1950s by a Kiwi, Bill Hamilton, as a way to navigate the shallow rivers around Queenstown. I was shuttled 20 minutes through the mountains to the river, outfitted with a spray jacket and life vest and led with a few others into a sporty red boat lined with four rows of seats and no seat belts. The driver gave a single safety instruction (“Hold on tight, you’re going to get wet”), then hurtled down a canyon at high speed, leaning the boat perilously—unbelievably, and exhilaratingly—close to the cliff walls.

“All that Nintendo paid off,” he said.

My visceral sense of danger spiked at each close call, but by the second time around, the water’s vibrant turquoise color and the boat’s handlebars created the (false) impression of being on a theme park ride, and with that, the rush quickly subsided.

A bus took us 45 minutes farther up the Shotover, where we were divvied into rafts. The 10-mile float downriver started tranquilly enough; the two Quebecois guys in front of me were over-aggressively paddling, and our guide, an affable New Zealander named Andy, instructed them not to behave “like 18-year-olds in the bedroom.” But better than being with a gang of Irishmen, he claimed. “They can’t swim,” Andy said. “You get crews that look really big and strong but turn into sniffling girls when they go down the rapids.”

The Shotover is believed to be the world’s second richest gold producing river, after Canada’s Yukon. As we approached the “mother section” of rapids, Andy pointed out landmarks like Canadian Corner—a relatively calm stretch of whitewater where Canadian guides flipped out of their boats six times in a single season. Andy recited the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” before trailing off. “Eh, I don’t even know it. Okay, forward hard!” We rushed headlong into Aftershock, a new rapid that had been formed by an earthquake a few months earlier. “Get down!” Andy ordered. We braced ourselves as the current took our rubber raft on a slippery ride up and down, up and down, splashing frothy water into our faces.

We paddled on into Anvil, the next rapid. “Lean left!” I jumped to the other side of the raft and held on to the rope. The rapid left us floating backwards as we entered Toilet, an aptly named whirlpool that spun us around and spit us back down the river. We kept on, launching into a rapid called Oh S—! and bouncing off rocks down Pinball. After Pinball, the Shotover turned calm, and once again the adrenaline dissipated. But this was just a warm-up for the final course.

The bungee jump originated hundreds, possibly thousands, of years ago on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, where residents have long bound their feet in vines and hurled themselves off wooden towers. Henry van Asch and A.J. Hackett, two former ski bums, are credited with turning “land diving” into an international commercial juggernaut. In the 1980s, together with University of Auckland scientists, they developed the bungee cord, and Mr. Hackett soon made headlines by jumping off the Eiffel Tower. In their first year of business, 28 people paid $75 each to leap off the 140-foot Kawarau Bridge near Queenstown. Now, every year, nearly 100,000 New Zealand tourists pay up to $260 for the chance to prove their mettle.

The challenge had never held much appeal for me; I always considered bungee a pricey and gimmicky amusement that offered only an ephemeral thrill. But I was in Queenstown, the sport’s birthplace—it’s the local food.

My anxiety began to build on the 35-minute drive to the rim of the 440-foot Nevis River canyon. There, I was put in a harness and shuttled in a gondola across the canyon to a capsule fit for 15 people suspended high over the river. The space was a hive of pent-up energy: House and hip-hop music blared at a volume that eliminated any ponderous thinking; workers cycled jumpers through quickly and efficiently.

I was led to a reclining chair beside the open platform, where my feet were bound. Michael Jackson filled the space: “Don’t stop ’til you get enough…” And then, I was shuffled out to a metal platform, as if walking the plank. I looked down at my fate. The river was a thin emerald ribbon; the canyon seemed vast and I felt small. I went weak in the knees, and for the first time in a lifetime of peering over precipices, just for a look, I had to disobey the ingrained mother’s voice that always leads me back from the edge: “Don’t get too close!” There was no turning around. I took a leap of faith.

Instincts don’t rationalize such a situation. They don’t consider the security of the cord. For eight seconds in free fall, with my arms outstretched and feeling no resistance, I yelled as though my life might end. When I felt the slight tug of the cord, the yell turned to a holler, then into giddy elation. I had been spared—and that was absurdly awesome!

I dangled for a few moments longer, alone in that vast canyon. I was tired, but deeply satisfied. I had pushed an edge within myself, and all I got was this dose of adrenaline.

Por DAVID WESSEL

O modelo de negócios dos Estados Unidos pifou.

Não é sempre que se ouve falar de um “modelo de negócios” para a vasta e diversificada economia dos EUA. Mas, explícita ou implicitamente, há uma estratégia de crescimento econômico na base da política do governo, nas apostas dos investidores e empresas e no comportamento do consumidor.

A estratégia dos EUA não está funcionando. Dois anos depois de a economia ter ido de uma contração para uma expansão, a produção ainda não voltou aos níveis anteriores à recessão. O país ainda está a 10 milhões de vagas do pleno emprego, e o porcentual de adultos trabalhando, 58,2%, está no nível mais baixo em 28 anos. A onda mais recente de más notícias econômicas prova que essa não é uma recuperação típica, despertando temores de um novo mergulho na recessão e reforçando a ideia de que os antigos propulsores da economia não vão gerar crescimento futuro.

Paul Romer, uma economista da Universidade de Nova York que passou a carreira pensando em crescimento econômico, chama esta fase de “A grande tribulação”, um período de sofrimento que, segundo o acadêmico, pode durar cinco ou até dez anos.

Austan Goolsbee, que está deixando o cargo de assessor econômico do presidente Barack Obama, argumenta que os EUA não deveriam aspirar a um retorno do modelo nacional de negócios da última década, em que o consumo alimentado por dívida e uma bolha do mercado imobiliário impulsionaram a economia. “Não podemos simplesmente voltar para o que estávamos fazendo na década de 2000″, diz.

Ele prescreve uma recuperação “alimentada pelo investimento das empresas, pelo crescimento das exportações, pela inovação”. Parece um bom modelo, mas como conseguir isso?

Ocultadas nas entrelinhas do debate sobre a dívida no Congresso americano esta semana estavam duas alternativas. Simplificando um pouco demais, aqui vão elas:

O primeiro ponto de vista reza que se o governo retroceder, o setor privado vai avançar. “Queremos criar empregos, e a melhor maneira de fazer isso é parar de tirar dinheiro do setor privado, parar de sobrecarregar as pessoas neste país com impostos, deixar esse dinheiro no setor privado e permitir que ele seja usado para gerar empregos”, disse a deputada Virginia Foxx, da Carolina do Norte. O slogan: nenhum aumento de impostos.

A visão alternativa é que o setor privado está trabalhando apenas para uma fina camada de vencedores no topo; o governo deveria desempenhar o papel de Robin Hood. “Cortes nos impostos não [geram] empregos”, disse a deputada Barbara Lee, da Califórnia. “Se nós não pedirmos aos super-ricos e às corporações que extraem bilhões de dólares em lucros da economia americana, não teremos fundos suficientes para manter o motor funcionando (…) para assegurar que podemos cumprir as obrigações do país para com os idosos, as crianças e os pobres”. A palavra de ordem: nenhum corte na Previdência Social, nem nos benefícios médicos a aposentados e pessoas de baixa renda.

A estratégia habitual de um colunista a esta altura é criticar ambos os pontos de vista e sugerir uma alternativa mais sábia. Essa não é minha intenção. Os fatos não favorecem o argumento de que o governo está sufocando o setor privado: Há muita capacidade não utilizada, muitos trabalhadores ociosos e muito crédito a juros baixos disponíveis para as grandes empresas. Os fatos também mostram que a diferença entre vencedores e perdedores na economia tem aumentado nas últimas décadas.

Mas o debate parlamentar deixou algo de fora. Dois grandes setores da economia dos EUA têm usado esteróides: a indústria financeira e a da saúde. Se há algo asfixiando atividades mais produtivas, são elas, como argumentou Romer em uma palestra recente na Academia Nacional de Ciências.

O inchado setor financeiro, todos aqueles cérebros brilhantes atraídos por grandes somas de dinheiro que poderiam ter sido empregados na ciência, informática, ou outros campos, têm prejudicado a economia dos EUA mais do que fez qualquer um dos nossos adversários comunistas depois da Segunda Guerra. O sistema de saúde americano custa mais por pessoa do que qualquer outro, mas não produz as pessoas mais saudáveis do mundo. Os EUA não estão recebendo de volta o valor do seu dinheiro de nenhum desses dois setores.

A solução proposta por Romer sugere que o Congresso deve amarrar suas próprias mãos com mais frequência, mantendo o poder de investigar e votar a criação e eliminação de projetos, mas evitando a elaboração detalhada de disposições legislativas que influenciem o fluxo do dinheiro. Em outras palavras, ele quer mais órgãos para decidir que bases militares podem ser fechadas, identificar maneiras em que a saúde pública pode economizar dinheiro e, talvez, para encontrar US$ 1,5 trilhão de cortes de gastos públicos.

Talvez essa seja uma resposta. Mas é claro que a prosperidade futura depende de que os EUA, seu governo, empresas, indivíduos e universidades se unam em prol de uma estratégia de crescimento e criação de incentivos para que talentos e capital fluam na direção de setores promissores, nos quais os EUA ainda têm uma vantagem em uma economia global cada vez mais competitiva.